Alcatraz vs. the Evil Librarians

Below is an excerpt of my full review of the first four books in the Alcatraz series: This review goes in line with that of the Alcatraz series, more specifically the attitude of a Smedry. You see, they are trouble makers, and are prone to getting themselves into life threatening situations. They have an uncharacteristic attitude when dealing with any situation. The more danger, the more excited they are. Through thick and thin, Smedry's are rarely to be found with a sour mood. They are bubbly, charismatic, bold, audacious, and have a knack for getting themselves into trouble. Wait, I said that did I not? Gack! You see, I imitating a number of characters found in this book. Granpa Smedry, Alcatraz, talking dinosaurs. Yes, you read correctly, talking dinosaurs with a British accent, and as we know, those Brits are refined, calm, and well-mannered; dinosaurs are no exception! They really know how to cause trouble for Librarians, like eating the entire C section of the Science Fiction shelf and moving six books out of their proper places. Okay, so maybe they are useless as Bastille said... The only thing worse than talking dinosaurs are talking rocks, but I tell you, the dinosaurs are a treat! To round off this paragraph, I leave you this quote from Grandpa Smedry if you think I am making any of this up: I am a Smedry, and we do ridiculous, unexpected, eccentric things like this all the time. The Alcatraz series is a tremendously fun read. My friend that recommended Mistorn and Elantris did not bother giving these books a shot because of their young adult emphasis, despite being a lover of Sanderson's work. Aspiring Asimovs, what a horrible reason! Lots of fun, many laugh out loud moments, tons of humor and wit, with a great story to boot! The books are written from the first person perspective of Alcatraz Smedry, written as a biography of how he became the hero of the Free Kingdom and to dispel the many myths about how it happened. The books are much shorter than all of Sanderson's other works, easily read in two or three days, and are extremely enjoyable. I cannot recommend these books enough! Unfortunately Scholastic decided to not sign Sanderson for the fifth and final book. According to his assistant via Twitter, Sanderson will finish the series, but it's still a few years out, which is a shame. When I found out about this, I shook my fist at Scholastic and demanded they be burned alive with the Firebringer's Lens. You'll have to read the books to know what that's about ;)

Everything by Sanderson is amazing! Plus, these books are illustrated. Reader thoughts: Alcatraz is witty, slightly sacrastic (but not rude), and he pokes fun at readers and writers alike. He makes fun of things like: the fantasy genre, people who skip to the last page; literary techniques like cliffhangers. I can (and do) read these books over and over. I laugh so much, and the jokes are funny the second and third time through. The technology and magic are well explained and fun. Glass is magical. Glasses are magical. Some people can use magical glasses, and some people can use magical talents (like arriving late or tripping spectacularly). Some people, like Alcatraz and his grandfather, can do both. Much about this book is so clever, including the Smedry talents (who knew you could stop a drought by washing dishes? Or that speaking gibberish at an interrogation would be a good idea?). The talking dinosaurs, encyclopedia altar, and romance book monsters were just too fun. The plot is just the right size and complexity, and the pacing was perfect. One horrible birthday, one assassin, one hideout, and one library to infiltrate. Oh, and the library has a dungeon, a torture room, and a one-eyed dark occulator. I really liked how all the characters worked together, and that each was unique. Their voices are all different, but they're all somehow clever and funny. They each have their own pasts and motivations (like the Mokian, Sing, who is an antrhopologist, or Bastille, who gave up her dream of being an occulator in order to become a Knight of Crystallia). Alcatraz is quite an annoying narrator, though, and he never misses an opportunity to interrupt with a nearly useless paragraph of information once or twice in each chapter (usually his interruptions have to do with trying to convince the reader he is not a very nice narrator). However, he is still funny to read, and fairly bright. Writer thoughts: Sanderson has said these books were longer (I think 65k words), and his publisher made him cut them to 55k words. When an author is on a word budget, no sentences are wasted. Every piece of information in these books moves the plot forward. Every description is short and powerful. Every line of dialogue is necessary and funny. Then we have Alcatraz's interruptions. They take up a page at the beginning of every chapter. Why weren't they cut? It's because, despite initial assumptions, those interruptions are vital to the story. They show the reader Alcatraz's character. They make the reader laugh. And they make the reader want to slap Alcatraz for being so annoying.

Alcatraz Smedry seems like an ordinary preteen boy... except he has a particular talent for breaking things, he's an Oculator, and he's being chased by fascist Librarians. And that's only the beginning of the insanity that goes on in "Alcatraz Vs. The Evil Librarians," a charming middle-school fantasy by fantasy titan Brandon Sanderson. And rather than playing the book's events straight, Sanderson keeps his tongue firmly placed in his cheek, both about his oddball hero ("If you are anything like me – clever, fond of goat cheese, and devilishly handsome") and about the topsy-turvy world of misinformation and paper monsters he inhabits. On his thirteenth birthday, Alcatraz receives a bag of sand, which is allegedly from his birth parents. He's more concerned about being bounced from his latest foster home, and having nowhere to go -- until a man with a gun menaces him, and a strange old man who claims to be his grandfather rescues him from the evil "Librarian." Grandpa Smedry claims that he is an Oculator from the Free Kingdoms, and that the bag of sand is the power Sands of Rashid... which makes it problematic that the Librarians have stolen it. Obviously Alcatraz believes the old man is insane at first, but goes along with it -- and soon discovers a strange world of paper monsters, silver-haired teen knights, bizarre talents (of which his "breaking things" is one), magical eyeglass lenses and hidden continents. They must infiltrate the local library to get back the Sands of Rashid before it's too late... but they also have a terrifying enemy in a Dark Oculator. Will Alcatraz, Bastille and Sing (yes, the characters have prison names) be able to save themselves, let alone the rest of the world?! It's obvious from "Alcatraz vs. the Evil Librarians" that Brandon Sanderson had a fun time writing this one. It's whimsical nonsense ("secret" continents, evil Librarians and paper monsters), but he clearly relished reveling in that nonsense -- the entire book is a metafictional exercise written from Alcatraz's perspective as a sort of memoir, and he declares that the perception that it's all nonsense is because the Librarians have molded your mind and perceptions of reality to fit their ends, declaring that the "no Librarian is likely to recommend it." And in the process, he has some fun with what people consider "serious" literature for kids ("Instead, his dog will die. Or, in some cases, his mother will die. If it’s a really meaningful book, both his dog and his mother will die"), and twiddling with the idea of what is "realistic" and/or "nonsense." If real life has taught us anything, it's that people are easily lied to and deceived. See also: every election. In the meantime, Sanderson presents us with a fun, colorful adventure that jaunts along at a rapid pace, full of funny little moments (such as Alcatraz explaining how he once "broke" a chicken) and quirky first-person narration ("If you are ever attacked by unstoppable monsters created entirely from bad romance novels..."). It has the typical elaborate forms of magic that you'd expect of any of his books, presented with a whimsy AND menace that is thoroughly entertaining. Nothing too deep here, just a rollicking adventure story that likes to poke fun at story tropes. And Alcatraz himself is a fun lead character -- snarky, self-deprecating, and constantly reminding us that he's not a nice person (after all, would a nice person tantalize us with action and excitement, then go back to a depressingly awful birthday?), but we do see some of the scars from a life of foster care and massive breakage that have led to him being so oddly removed from others. And while they're not terribly developed yet, the other characters -- wildly eccentric Grandpa Smedry, the irascible Bastille, nonsense-spouting Quentin and weapons-happy Sing -- are all fun to read about. Fun and light, "Alcatraz vs. The Evil Librarians" is an entertaining introduction for kids to the works of Brandon Sanderson -- clever, imaginative and very rarely slow-moving. Remember: Cantaloupe, fluttering paper makes a duck.

Alcatraz at first glance appears to be your typical teen-age boy, even if he's named after a world-famous prison. Being passed around the foster-care system hasn't helped his attitude much, though, and it seems that he brings it on himself with his terrible clutziness. On his thirteenth birthday he gets a strange--and very old--package in the mail from his father (where is he? is he dead? is he alive? we don't know?) claiming that it contains Alcatraz's inheritance: a bag of sand. Mystified and sad, he decides to make himself some comfort food but accidentally catches the kitchen drapes on fire. Then everything hits the fan: the sand is stolen, a man claiming to be his grandfather shows up, his foster mother wants to kick him out of the house, and a man with a gun threatens his life. Not a great way to spend a birthday, if you ask me. But, oh, what hilarity ensues. What's great about Sanderson's stuff is that it's beyond the typical fantasy-epic-journey type story like you'd find in Paolini or MacHale. Almost the entire story takes place at the downtown library, where things aren't always what they seem. And nothing is off-limits: Sanderson makes fun of everything and it's just plain funny. Exceedingly silly, but funny for kids and grown-ups. The characters are fun, and even the antagonists turn out to be complex people. Alcatraz in particular is an interesting character who struggles with his accident-prone nature, until he learns it's a 'Talent' (his grandfather's Talent is arriving late to things...it's so funny, but it works!). He's convinced he's a bad kid, but it gets harder for us to believe it as the story progresses, and even he seems to change his mind a little near the end. Sanderson's strength, as in his other novels, is his plotting. He knows how to tell a story at a great pace, that moves forward and never lags. The author is also great with magic. He finds new ways to make magic just plain cool, like the Allomancers in The Final Empire (Mistborn, Book 1) . In Alcatraz the protagonists have their Talents (his cousin's Talent is tripping), but they are also Occulators--that is, many of their powers come from the eye-glasses they wear! How cool is that?! Having worn glasses all throughout my childhood, the idea of them giving superpowers is cooler than cool. Alcatraz would be great to read out loud to your kids (I'd say ages 9-12), and you won't be bored in the process!

Great book to inspire boys to read!

I picked this up because I am a big Brandon Sanderson fan (I’ve read the entire Cosmere and Stormlight is among my favorite series) and I wanted to share that love with my 8-year-old son. He is a fantastic listener who just finished Harry Potter books 1-5 without missing a beat and was completely immersed. Given that experience I knew he could handle complex stories and so, knowing Brandon's world-building prowess and magic-system invention, I was hoping Alcatraz would be our next great magical adventure. Unfortunately, this wasn't it. While the core ideas are fantastic—the "Hushlands vs. Free Kingdoms" and the subversion of Librarian propaganda are clever—the book suffers greatly from a huge pacing problem which is caused by constant 4th-wall breaking. As a read-aloud, it becomes a chore. There are entire chapters where the plot halts completely for the sake of the narrator's meta-commentary. When you have a little one eagerly waiting for "tonight's chapter," it is incredibly frustrating to read through pages of self-indulgent "word vomit" where essentially nothing happens. My son, despite being a sharp reader, hasn't consumed enough literary tropes yet to even have context for the satire the book is trying to pull off. The "wink-wink" humor goes right over his head. Now, that is a problem unique to our situation, perhaps the satire lands better for others with better context. I eventually found that the experience improved significantly when I started skipping the 4th-wall breaks entirely. My son enjoys the plot-related humor, but the author's attempt at being clever feels forced. Even as an adult fan, I’ve often felt Sanderson struggles with humor (it often makes me cringe), and here the narrator feels a bit too proud of his own jokes. Overall: Great world-building, but I’d recommend this for older kids reading to themselves who are well-read enough to get the satire. As a read-aloud for an 8-year-old? Be prepared to skip A LOT of exposition to keep them interested. It's a good story worthy of being read (eventually) but coming off of a deeply immersive narrative like Harry Potter it proved to be a poor choice.

'I do not generally recommend this kind of book at all. Boring, meaningful, and thoughtful books are likely to suit you more. I realize you are not likely to be interested in Librarians, paper monsters, or one-eyed Dark Oculators. And, neither the dog nor the mother dies as you are probably expecting. It has nothing to do with the Great Depression or living on a mountain. Instead, it is a solid, true account intended to help anchor you in reality.' Or, you could resume looking for books that are NOT about true heroes. You could ... IF you wanted to. 😇 The most redeeming quality of this fantasy is how it reveals Sanderson as a decent, kindhearted individual who, nevertheless, became a writer *chortle, chortle*. He 'talks' about authors who create loveable characters then let baddies do awful things to them- to make the reader "squirm", but THEN, he creates characters that are downtrodden, hopeless, and struggling and makes them competent, confident and the bane of villians. *grin* . Then there's this character. Dear Brandon, I recall being quite good at Algebra during my "fantasy-reading, rebellious, trouble-making years", but now my delight in these latter years is in your books. (It's been a wonderful weekend.) Z Keep writing. Note to teachers and homeschoolers, be certain you read the last information at the end intended for educators. Seriously.

I know some kids who will adore the humor if they ever actually read this book over comics and creating their own games and universes. I prefer other books by Sanderson, but I still really liked the story and felt it fit a 13-year-old pretty well. I laughed at the conspiracies I didn't know I'd learn about, I raised an eyebrow at the magic (Sanderson is always creative and delivers), and I cringed at the cheesy lines that actually worked perfectly in context. I'll be continuing this series because I do like it, but I'll wait a bit. I'm definitely more into Mistborn, personally. Also, I liked the illustrations, but I found the character descriptions frequent and vivid enough to have enjoyed the book without them. Some of the visuals are fun to have reinforced though. Such a funny mix of things. A bit quirky. If you're a Sanderson fan and you work with kids around this reading level, enjoy! If you're a Sanderson fan and you don't like YA and middle grade books, you should still give this book a shot because it is a fun adventure and has some little Easter eggs hiding in there, but it might not be for you.